John Harbaugh talks quarterback salary cap issues, Jim Harbaugh learning about Browns 'trade'

The NFL owners meetings enter their second full day, and today kicked off with AFC head coaches conducting a press breakfast. NFC head coaches will go tomorrow, which means we should have plenty of Jim Harbaugh quotations for you.

In the meantime, the AFC breakfast was not useless for 49ers fans. Matt Maiocco and Matt Barrows were on hand, and they were able to ask John Harbaugh a couple questions related to Jim's current situation. You can read Matt Barrows' article here, and Matt Maiocco's article here.

Salary Cap issues

John Harbaugh does not have to make the salary cap decisions in Baltimore, but he has to deal with the consequences. In this case, it's the contract of quarterback Joe Flacco. After winning the Super Bowl, Flacco cashed in big time. John made an interesting golf analogy:

"It's like golf. You got to play the shot that you're presented with. Sometimes you go for the pin and some times you go to knock it out from the woods. When you're quarterback is making that much money, you've got more tough shots that you have to make. They'll do a good job in San Francisco. They're really smart. They know what they're doing."

Once June hits, the 49ers have cap space to make Kap's deal work without re-working other deals, but more than likely any new contract would end up like Tom Brady's in some sense, where he's re-structuring it every couple of years. He'll get inflated late contract base salaries that he'll never see, and it will be an oft-discussed topic every offseason.

And it will end up impacting a lot of roster decisions. John talked about tough decisions, including having to part ways with Jameel McClain. And of course the decision to trade Anquan Boldin was dictated in large part by Joe Flacco's contract extension. The 49ers cap managers are always busy, but the Kap deal will mean plenty of long hours moving forward.

Jim Harbaugh "Trade"

John also had a chance to address the rumored trade discussion involving Jim. Apparently the two of them were sitting next to each other at the NFL Combine when the rumors first hit. John said that at first he laughed, and jokingly got "ticked off" figuring Jim should have told him about it. John said Jim was "kind of incredulous" when he heard the rumors. As for what to make of the rumors, John had his own thoughts:

"I'm sure there was some conversation. I think everybody said there was a dialogue, you know? But how serious it was and what kind of ... I guess it's fun to talk about. So, hey, we talk about it on our team. You always have to make the team better, so I guess the Browns were trying to make their team better."

That pretty much sums it up. While PFT and others wanted to push this as some big negotiation, in reality, it was likely a single quick conversation that never amounted to anything. But national media can't handle that, obviously.